Don't know how many of you were able to watch this epic '60' Minute show last night but ...it was both informative and gut wrenching and left me heart sick that my country was/has/did this to humans under the guise of 'Information Gathering'! I've never felt the need for the use of 'TORTURE'; having read far too many incidents of abuse perpetrated upon children/women/military service people under the guise of 'Lab Rat Testing' the newest biological war fare type. Both by my country and other nations alike. Justification, be dammed ...this can't be allowed for any reason!

Does torture get good intel? Ex-Gitmo detainee says, "No"

Mohamedou Slahi gives 60 Minutes an uncensored account of the now-illegal enhanced interrogation he endured at Guantanamo Bay -- and why he says it doesn’t work

2017 - Mar 12 Correspondent Holly Williams The following is a script from “Prisoner 760,” which aired on March 12, 2017. Holly Williams is the correspondent. Keith Sharman, producer. Erin Horan, associate producer.

President Obama tried and failed to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, a place he believed, quote, “hinders…our fight against terrorism.” President Trump disagreed and has vowed to quote “load it up with some bad dudes.” Just 41 prisoners remain at Guantanamo and of the nearly 800 who were there at some point, not many have been interviewed. But tonight, Holly Williams has the story of one very unusual former detainee in his first television interview.Correspondent Holly Williams and Mohamedou Slahi, an author and former Guantanamo Bay detaineee - Eric Kerchner Mohamedou Slahi was set free by the United States and sent to his home country of Mauritania last October after 14 years as prisoner 760 in Guantanamo Bay. Improbably, while fighting for his own release, he taught himself English, wrote a bestselling book about his life in American custody, and became good friends with some of his guards, one of whom you’ll hear from tonight.Slahi spent about one third of his life at Guantanamo and his book offered an unprecedented look inside the prison. Though it includes descriptions of torture, it can be funny at times and we discovered that in person Slahi has a keen sense of humor. Six weeks after he was released from Guantanamo, we went to northwest Africa to meet him.***edited for space ** click on the link for the entire story by '60' MINUTESMohamedou Slahi - CBS News Of the nearly 800 men who’ve been incarcerated at some point in Guantanamo Bay, prisoner 760, Mohamedou Slahi, was the only one to detail his treatment there in a book that came out while he was still detained in the prison. Published in 2015, it is a unique first person account of life in Guantanamo and America’s now outlawed enhanced interrogation program. When Slahi arrived at the prison, his time spent in Afghanistan in the early 1990s and connections to al Qaeda made him a top priority for U.S. intelligence. We begin the second part of our story by asking Slahi the same questions his interrogators asked him over and over.

Holly Williams: Did you meet any of the 9/11 hijackers?Mohamedou Slahi: No.Holly Williams: Did you have any prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks?Mohamedou Slahi: Absolutely none whatsoever.Holly Williams: And when you saw on television those attacks, what did you think?Mohamedou Slahi: It was heartbreaking, you know, knowing that those people, just like my family, children, men, women, just regular people who went to their work. They didn’t do anything to anyone. But they were-- yet they were killed in cold bloodHolly Williams: When you discovered that it was the work of al Qaeda, what did you think?Mohamedou Slahi: I thought, “This is evil. Thank God that I left Afghanistan so many years.”Living freely in his home country of Mauritania, Slahi is working on a new edition of his book, “Guantanamo Diary” that fills in some of the blanks put in by the U.S. government. Slahi arrived in Guantanamo in August 2002. For several months he was interrogated by the FBI. In 2003, the military began subjecting him to so called enhanced interrogation that included both physical and psychological abuse.His uncensored story, which you’re about to hear, is supported by several reports and investigations from Congress and the Departments of Justice and Defense.Mohamedou Slahi: They had plans. Very careful thought plans.He says those plans began when he was moved to a special cell in the India block section of the prison…a place he nicknamed “the fridge.”Holly Williams: Why the fridge?Mohamedou Slahi: Yeah, it’s a very small holding cell that is cold. And you don’t see anything, you don’t see outside. Completely cut off .Holly Williams: No daylight?Mohamedou Slahi: Nothing.Mohamedou Slahi: I remained there 70 days, continuous interrogation.Holly Williams: What do you mean by continuous?Mohamedou Slahi: That mean I had three shifts of interrogators.Holly Williams: Every day?Mohamedou Slahi: Every day.Holly Williams: Were you allowed to sleep at all?Mohamedou Slahi: There is between the night shift and the day shift. Maybe two hours. I don’t know, it’s not long. I didn’t-- I didn’t have any feeling for time really.Holly Williams: What did it do to you?Mohamedou Slahi: I lived in a haze. I was very nervous, very angry, very easy to be angry. And I was crying for the simplest reason.Holly Williams: What else happened?Mohamedou Slahi: Then they brought another Marine guy. He wore Marine; it does not mean that he’s a Marine. I’m just saying this for the record. And then he kept pouring this water on me. Then I kept really shaking.Holly Williams: He was pouring water on you?Mohamedou Slahi: Yes. And then he said, “Answer me.” But I couldn’t talk because-- because my mouth couldn’t move because I was very cold (brrr).Holly Williams: You were just too cold to talk.Mohamedou Slahi: Yes, I couldn’t move my lips.But it was another tactic that brought Slahi close to the edge.An interrogator who claimed he’d been dispatched from the White House gave Slahi grave news.“[He] was … shown a fictitious letter … stating that his mother had been detained… and … might be transferred to GTMO.”Holly Williams: There was no implication that she’d done anything?Mohamedou Slahi: No, they said only because I wouldn’t-- I wouldn’t-- confess.Holly Williams: The idea that she was going to be held with male prisoners was terrible for you.Mohamedou Slahi: That is an understatement.Holly Williams: What was your fear?Mohamedou Slahi: I can’t even think about it. I don’t want to think about it.Later he was dragged from his cell and put on a boat.Mohamedou Slahi: They opened my mouth and pouring salt water until I-- start choking.Holly Williams: They were forcing you to drink salt water?Mohamedou Slahi: Yes.Holly Williams: What happened next?Mohamedou Slahi: So they start to-- fill me with ice cube. Ice cube--Holly Williams: Inside your uniform?Mohamedou Slahi: Inside your uniform. Ice cube, full. My body was full. And then I was like shaking uncontrollably like this. They start hitting me everywhere, hitting.Holly Williams: Beating you?Mohamedou Slahi: Yeah, beating me, everywhere.Holly Williams: For how long?Mohamedou Slahi: Again, I didn’t have feeling for time. But it must have been three hours.Holly Williams: How much pain were you in?Mohamedou Slahi: I was moaning like a woman giving birth. Holly Williams: And what did you decide to do?Mohamedou Slahi: I decide I will tell them everything they want to know.Holly Williams: They broke you.Mohamedou Slahi: Absolutely. They broke me. I told the captain, that the boss of my team, “You write anything and I sign it. And if you buy, I’m selling.”Holly Williams: And you were lying to them?Mohamedou Slahi: Not everything I said lie-- my life, I told them my life truthfully. But the crimes, I was lying about. Every single crime, I falsely confessed to.Slahi says he told his interrogators that he was an active recruiter for al Qaeda, and was involved in a plan for a bombing in Toronto but that plot never actually existed.Holly Williams: Your life got a lot better--Mohamedou Slahi: Yes.Mohamedou Slahi: Dramatically better. No more beating. No more-- I was allowed to sleep.Mohamedou Slahi: I was afraid of false confessing, but it was a relief because now he-- the captain could not torture me anymore because I gave him what he wanted. Now he had to sell this-- first to the F.B.I., to C.I.A. And then they have to sell this to the prosecution, military prosecution, and those people are intelligent and smart. And then what they-- pretty much told him, “This is a bunch of B.S.”Holly Williams: You told them what they wanted to hear.Holly Williams: Because you wanted the torture to stop.Mohamedou Slahi: Yes. Absolutely.Mohamedou Slahi: I falsely confessed to crime. It was bad business. Bad business.In 2004, the military officer chosen to prosecute Slahi resigned from the case saying later that he was quote … “convinced that Slahi had… been the victim of torture—not by anything Slahi said, but solely from U.S. government documents from the intelligence databases, detailing, specifically, what had been done to him during the interrogations.”In 2010, a federal judge ordered Slahi’s release and wrote “there is ample evidence … that Slahi was subjected to extensive and severe mistreatment at Guantanamo.”Evidence gathered through torture has complicated the government’s military prosecutions at Guantanamo. There have only ever been eight convictions and three were later over-turned.Holly Williams: You were one of the worst tortured in Guantanamo, so you’re in a unique position to answer this. Does torture work?Mohamedou Slahi: In what way? If working’s bringing pain on me, yes. If working is giving false confessions, yes. If “works” is giving good intelligence, no. If it works resulting in my conviction, hello! I’m here, after 15 years and not even charged, let alone being convicted. So how can you convince anyone possibly who has a shred of intelligence that it works?Holly Williams: How did you manage to not lose your sanity?Mohamedou Slahi: Thank you very much, that-- the premise is that I did not lose my sanity. This psychiatrist told me 760. That what they call me. “You are really very sick.”Holly Williams: Sick with what?Mohamedou Slahi: Psychologically. I was hearing noises.Holly Williams: Hearing voices?Mohamedou Slahi: Yes.Holly Williams: What were they saying?Mohamedou Slahi: It was my family just talking to me every day. And this wouldn’t stop. And then he came to me, this doctor, And they help me. They gave medications over many years, heavy medication. And I was helped.Holly Williams: They gave you psychiatric medicine--Mohamedou Slahi: Yes.Mohamedou Slahi: Paxil, Klonopin, and you see “The Sopranos”?Holly Williams: Yes.Mohamedou Slahi: Yes, that medication he took. Prozac.Holly Williams: Ah.Mohamedou Slahi: Things like that. They gave me a lot of this stuff.Holly Williams: How’s your health today?Mohamedou Slahi: I don’t have time to think about pain, which is good. The pain will go away.Holly Williams: But you didn’t really answer my question, Mohamedou. Are you dealing with psychological trauma?Mohamedou Slahi: I’m not a doctor.Holly Williams: Do you sometimes relive the torture in your head?Mohamedou Slahi: Of course. I still have nightmares. I still wake up and I think I’m in Guantanamo Bay.At 46 years old, freedom has been a major adjustment. So has fame. He returned to Mauritania a national hero. Many here are angry about what the U.S., one of their allies, did to Slahi, but are also proud that he’s come home with his dignity in tact.He’s been embraced by a large extended family, including some members who weren’t yet born when he disappeared.There have also been losses. It’s been more than 15 years since he got in his car and headed to the police station on his way to Guantanamo. Slahi’s mother said goodbye that night but she wasn’t there to welcome him home. She passed away in 2013.Holly Williams: And you didn’t see your mom again?Mohamedou Slahi: No, I never see her again. It was the last time. It’s seared in my memory, that picture frozen in time.Holly Williams: If you had to sum up the last 15 years of your life, what would you say?Mohamedou Slahi: Pain and suffering is part of growing up, and I grew up.Mohamedou Slahi says the U.S. government is holding several other books he wrote while in prison: two novels and a self-help book about staying positive no matter the situation. At times, during our trip to Mauritania he seemed exhausted but there was almost always a smile on his face. He told us getting out of Guantanamo was like being born again.http://www.cbsnews.com/news/does-torture-get-good-intel-ex-gitmo-detainee-says-no/

Deadpool wrote:Pretty much. Hell i would tell you anything you want if it stops a bad toothache

Welcome - Deadpool; and that's exactly what many of the 'Anti-Waterboarding' American's were saying and this unfortunate detainee proves the truth behind the 'Torture' issue!

Holly Williams: You were one of the worst tortured in Guantanamo, so you’re in a unique position to answer this. Does torture work?Mohamedou Slahi: In what way? If working’s bringing pain on me, yes. If working is giving false confessions, yes. If “works” is giving good intelligence, no. If it works resulting in my conviction, hello! I’m here, after 15 years and not even charged, let alone being convicted. So how can you convince anyone possibly who has a shred of intelligence that it works?

And for all of those BS stories that POTUS #43 and his war mongers pushed during the 'Water Boarding' hearings and the 'We aren't torturing those detainee's at Guantanamo Bay ...we're just Water Boarding them' ...all BS and false statements to the hearings and over sight committee!

The prohibition against torture is a bedrock principle of international law. Torture, as well as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, is banned at all times, in all places, including in times of war. No national emergency, however dire, ever justifies its use.

Deadpool wrote:The prohibition against torture is a bedrock principle of international law. Torture, as well as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, is banned at all times, in all places, including in times of war. No national emergency, however dire, ever justifies its use.The end

'Water Boarding' ...that seemed to be the crux of the entire Rumsfeld/VP Cheney/POTUS #43 GWB's position about how that didn't fall 'under the United Nations Mandate' for torture. They were so quickly & ready to split fine hairs over that while all of those other atrocities {tortures were being done to those detainees} both on my extended military base at Guantanamo and other satellite bases around the world; ie > Abu Ghraib

New Bush-Era Torture Memo Released, Raises Questions About What Has Changed And What Hasn’tBy Dan Froomkin

WASHINGTON — A six-year-old memo from within the George W. Bush administration that came to light this week acknowledges that White House-approved interrogation techniques amounted to “war crimes.” The memo’s release has called attention to what has changed since President Barack Obama took office, but it also raises questions about what hasn’t.The Bush White House tried to destroy every copy of the memo, written by then-State Department counselor Philip Zelikow. Zelikow examined tactics like waterboarding — which simulates drowning — and concluded that there was no way they were legal, domestically or internationally.“We are unaware of any precedent in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, or any subsequent conflict for authorized, systematic interrogation practices similar to those in question here,” Zelikow wrote. The memo has been obtained by George Washington University’s National Security Archive and Wired’s Spencer Ackerman.On his second full day in office, President Barack Obama formally disavowed torture, banning the types of techniques Zelikow had objected to so strongly in his memo.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/06/torture-memo-bush_n_1408612.html

Not that I think or feel that my high disregard for this #43 and his henchmen group of war mongers, but there were just far too many things trashed/hidden/destroyed with the intent to obscure the 'TRUTH' and without a detailed trail {Watergate investigation/hearing} we'll just never know. And I just can't for the life of my morality code understand 'WHY THE HELL NOT?'

When the CIA & FBI requested 100 of thousands of emails from VP-Cheney's office for specific dates and years that encompassed 2003 - 2005 and some into 2008 and those emails just magically disappeared ...just corrupt high crimes and asinine intent to hide what they were doing and how they knew it was illegal. IMOI so love my country - but I fear and hate the crooked war mongers that seem to slide by with scamming/scheming/pilfering money from the middle class!